“The problem is, that’s not really how slavery ended. Those upright, moral, prewar abolitionists did not succeed. Neither did the stiff-necked Southern radicals who ended up destroying the institution they went to war to maintain. It was the flexibility of the Northern moderates, those flip-floppers who voted against abolition before they voted for it, who really ended 250 years of slavery.”

A better question: would slavery have ended within the next 50 years if we hadn’t decided to slaughter ourselves?

“Some VCs pretend to know markets better than you and kid themselves into thinking that their instincts on how to do it are better than yours. These are mostly VCs I would avoid. It’s like trusting your 28-year-old fresh-from-MBA-school McKinsey consultant to make executive business decisions about your 128 year-old-business that they know nothing about just because they are wicked smart, have a blackbelt in Excel & Powerpoint and do better graphs than you. Consultants should provide you data & frameworks – not decisions.”

“We analyze the idea inputs of nearly every US patent granted during 1836–2010. We find that a larger city size provided a considerable advantage in inventive activities during most of the 20th century but that in recent decades this advantage has eroded.”